New Site - what do you choose?

[KidsBeeHappy]

If you were building a new website, and were at the blank piece of paper stage, and the websites purpose was rank very highly on some quite competititive terms, what would you build the site with, to make in built and on site optimisation as best as possible?

 

[david64]

If you are refering to software packages, I would say none. You will just want a professional designer and programmer.

On-site SEO is not difficult. You just need to:

* research the subject matter with the site - keyword and market research
* come up with the architecture of the site
* produce large amounts of content based on your keyword research
* come up with a wireframe of how you would like all the pages to appear
* have all the pages designed in Photoshop by a good designer
* get some inital feedback on these designs from whoever you can
* make changes based on feedback
* construct an in-depth brief for your good developer
* launch the site
* produce content, interact with others online and build links

These were the guidelines I was following when I was working large projects.

If you want to launch a site to take competitive rankings (like life insurance), you really need a good web strategist in my opinion. Either that or a great big paid link budget.

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

Php? & Css?

 

[david64]

Php? & Css?

All sites should be built using CSS if it is a HTML site. PHP is a server-side language - it doesn't matter which one you use. Other examples are ASP, Java, Python, Perl. Although I use PHP, I would recommend Python as the best option. It will have no bearing on SEO though.

On-site SEO is largely concerned with the text on the page.

 

[iamlijo]

For on page SEO , take care from the first stage itself . Develop quality conetents, use h1-h6 tags, use image alt tags, add a sitemap , good internal linking stratagy .


Best of Luck

 

[GNU]

If you dont want to pay for a bespoke on this commercial offering may be worth a look

http://expressionengine.com/

 

[irobo]

Use alt tags for pictures, choose best keywords and add metatags

 

[fisicx]

My slight changes to David's list (may not need a developer or photoshop):

* research the subject matter with the site - keyword and market research
* come up with the architecture of the site
* write the content based on your keyword research in order to meet your visitor's needs
* come up with a wireframe to test the logical structure and navigation
* carry out user testing
* develop the layout
* further user testing
* make changes based on feedback
* launch the site
* produce content, interact with others online and build links

Have a look at the links in this forum, the post is old but the principles are still sound: http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19654

 

[awebapart.com]

If you were building a new website, and were at the blank piece of paper stage, and the websites purpose was rank very highly on some quite competititive terms, what would you build the site with, to make in built and on site optimisation as best as possible?

My overall advice is that any new software development is risky, and to minimise this risk, try to avoid reinventing the wheel where possible and try to minimise the software development required. Don't go fully bespoke if a semi-bespoke solution is more appropriate. Try to make use of tried and testing existing components and systems in a semi-bespoke architecture, where hopefully the components already have a good base of SEO functionality to work on.

PHP is a server-side language - it doesn't matter which one you use. Other examples are ASP, Java, Python, Perl. Although I use PHP, I would recommend Python as the best option. It will have no bearing on SEO though.

Any server-side environment should be able to send out similar looking html, and to that extent the server scripting environment has little effect on SEO. But there are subtle differences in server development approaches and development styles that might affect SEO in minor ways. For instance, some asp.net websites have viewstate code embedded in the html page, which might affect content to code ratio (a minor SEO factor, but a difference nonetheless).

 

[DotNetWebs]

...For instance, some asp.net websites have viewstate code embedded in the html page, which might affect content to code ratio (a minor SEO factor, but a difference nonetheless).

That's a good point about ViewState.

Many people do not realise that it's enabled by default and easily turned off.

Here are two URLs that some of you may recognise from another thread:

http://dotnetwebs.com/test/imagegrid/

http://dotnetwebs.com/test/imagegrid/viewstate.aspx

The only difference between the two is that one of the pages has the following tag:

EnableViewState="False"

Have a look at the difference in the source codes. The ViewState on the second URL is MASSIVE compared to the first

If I wanted to post back the page and be able to capture the state of each control on the page [DIVs, IMGs etc] I would enable the ViewState. As it happens I don't because each page refresh generates a new set of controls.

That's the general rule: if you are populating your controls on every page refresh you don't need view state and you can turn it off.

Regards

Dotty

 

[WhizzPeople]

I believe good designer / developer will always think about SEO while designing the framework. Then come content and Off page SEO. That's up to you ... if you are maintaining and doing SEO for the site.